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Call for cross-party NHS review, lack of coronary stent access and why you can ditch the New Year diet

A trio of former health ministers is calling for a cross-party review of the future of the NHS, the BBC reports.

Ex-health secretaries Stephen Dorrell, Alan Milburn and Norman Lamb – the only one of the three who is still an MP – are all supporting the idea.

Mr Lamb, who is set to raise the issue in Parliament today, said promises of extra money for the NHS were not enough to prevent systems collapsing and that the commission should consider increasing taxes and ending the ‘artificial divide’ between health and care, the report says.

That’s based on a study that showed people who suffer an MI are ‘far more likely’ to receive a coronary stent if they are sent to hospitals that operate primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) services round-the-clock.

According to Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, lives are ‘still being lost from the lack of 24/7 access to treatments’, the paper reports.